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Nancy Willard, winner of the Newberry Award for A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers, will introduce us to the unforgettable characters she created and encourage the whole group to compose a collaborative poem under her direction.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, an elfin, red-haired diva of the sonnet, published some of the wisest, sexiest, and most feminist poetry of the 20th century. From her childhood as caretaker of her siblings in Camden, Maine, to her adolescent near-miss at a national prize for "Renascence" which sparked a national poetry controversy, to her bohemian life in one of Greenwich Village's tiniest brownstones, Millay was as uncompromising in her devotion to the rules of verse as she was in her flaunting of social rules.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, an elfin, red-haired diva of the sonnet, published some of the wisest, sexiest, and most feminist poetry of the 20th century. From her childhood as caretaker of her siblings in Camden, Maine, to her adolescent near-miss at a national prize for "Renascence" which sparked a national poetry controversy, to her bohemian life in one of Greenwich Village's tiniest brownstones, Millay was as uncompromising in her devotion to the rules of verse as she was in her flaunting of social rules.

Who were the Beat Poets? Why are they ""beat"" and what does that mean? A look at their work, and the decades of the fifties and sixties in which they wrote, will explain why they remain iconic figures in American poetry. Their writing was shocking to some yet celebrated by others. Contemporary reaction to their poems was vociferous and divided. Today they continue to be notorious, though there is growing interest in their lively, noisy, exciting work. The Beat goes on!

Part of Poetry Westchester! , bringing free writing workshops, poetry readings and talks to community libraries throughout Westchester--a county rich in literary history, from Edgar Allan Poe to Washington Irving.

Funded by the Westchester Library System (through the Westchester County Board of Legislators).

The greatest iconoclasts don't set out to. Take Emily Dickinson. She just couldn't do some things as others did them. She couldn't seem to manage to get saved despite great pressure from revival-happy Amherst; she couldn't bend her talent to write poems in any way that her time could accept as poems; she couldn't want fame if it meant publishing; she couldn't trade the intensity of her own mind for the busyness beyond her gate.

Part of Poetry Westchester! , bringing free writing workshops, poetry readings and talks to community libraries throughout Westchester--a county rich in literary history, from Edgar Allan Poe to Washington Irving.

Funded by the Westchester Library System (through the Westchester County Board of Legislators).

Part of Poetry Westchester! , bringing free writing workshops, poetry readings and talks to community libraries throughout Westchester--a county rich in literary history, from Edgar Allan Poe to Washington Irving.

Funded by the Westchester Library System (through the Westchester County Board of Legislators).

Part of Poetry Westchester! , bringing free writing workshops, poetry readings and talks to community libraries throughout Westchester--a county rich in literary history, from Edgar Allan Poe to Washington Irving.

Funded by the Westchester Library System (through the Westchester County Board of Legislators).